Chapter 2106: The Ultimate New World (Part 22)

S. H. I. E. L. D., full name Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, is an international agency directly under the United Nations Security Council that specializes in handling supernatural events. It has dual law enforcement powers within and outside the United States, and its jurisdiction is very broad, but there is a hard requirement for the events it handles: they must be supernatural events.

Determining a supernatural event requires multi-party cooperation. First, when cases appear in certain areas, the investigation sequence of law enforcement agencies within the state is local community police, higher-level police stations, and state bureaus of investigation. If state law enforcement agencies cannot determine the cause, they will continue to request support upward, and the case will be sent to the FBI.

The FBI will collect information more extensively, communicate with local police, or even participate directly in the investigation. If they believe at this time that the case exceeds the scope of ordinary human crime, the case will be submitted to the supernatural event management department.

But S. H. I. E. L. D. is not the only department that manages supernatural events. Almost every state has a Special Security Administration, referred to as SSA, to handle many seemingly supernatural cases within the state.

The reason for such departments is entirely because many supernatural cases are difficult to define. A very clever serial killer uses religious-related arrangements in their murder cases. Before they are caught, it is easy for them to be seen as supernatural events. Such cases need to be handled by the SSA of each state.

After all, Marvel is a universe with superheroes, and there are many capable people among the people who cannot be called superheroes but have special abilities. Most of them work in the SSA. When this group of people investigates the accident scene and finds that this is not a supernatural event, the case will be transferred back to the FBI.

And if the FBI initiates an investigation again and still cannot find any human traces, the case will not be sent to state departments, but submitted directly to S. H. I. E. L. D.

In other words, most of the cases that can be submitted to S. H. I. E. L. D. are those where the FBI and the SSA have different opinions, and even local police, local residents, and law enforcement agencies find it difficult to reach a consensus, often splitting into human or ghost factions and arguing endlessly.

At this time, S. H. I. E. L. D. needs to come forward to conduct a more detailed and professional investigation to determine whether this is really a supernatural event.

As for how many of the various cases S. H. I. E. L. D. has handled over the years are true supernatural events and how many are human-made, it is actually difficult to say clearly.

Most cases have both supernatural factors and are difficult to get rid of human factors. The disaster might have been influenced by supernatural factors at the beginning, but by the end of the investigation, either humans were pushing it behind the scenes, or someone was taking advantage of the fire to harm their compatriots.

In the end, whether it was a paranormal event or the evil of human nature, it could not be announced to the public, and the public thought S. H. I. E. L. D. was maliciously concealing it, always working hard but not getting any credit. So later, unless the influence was extremely wide and public opinion was very large, S. H. I. E. L. D. accepted fewer and fewer cases within the country.

Today is an exception. On the last day of autumn, it rained heavily in the suburbs of New York. The helicopter rotors cut through the rain curtain, and the airflow stirred up the accumulated water under the lawn when it landed, splashing the cabin door with mud.

"I don't know how to describe it, it was terrifying."

A thin voice came from the crack of the door, accompanied by the crackling of firewood in the fireplace. Coulson, who walked down from the helicopter and approached the door, signaled the agent holding the umbrella to step back a little, and he pushed the door open and walked in alone.

An Asian female agent was sitting on the sofa nearby, listening intently to the girl opposite her. Coulson walked in on tiptoe, which startled the girl.

"Please don't be afraid, he is my superior." The Asian female agent stood up. Coulson nodded to her, signaling her to sit down, and said, "You don't need to feel constrained. May, have you obtained any useful clues?"

"We were just talking about this." The Asian female agent called May looked at the notebook in her hand, pressed the button on the recording device, and the blonde girl opposite her, wearing a floral dress and a knitted shawl, looked particularly exhausted. She turned her head and stared at Coulson, who walked to the dining table, and said.

"Mr. Agent, I have repeated what I saw dozens of times over the past few days. No one is willing to believe me. If you don't believe me, don't come and ask me again."

"Please believe that we are here for exactly this reason." Coulson turned around, leaned against the bar, and said, "We are different from the agents who questioned you before. We come from S. H. I. E. L. D., an organization that specializes in managing supernatural events. Have you heard of it?"

"They told me this name." The girl in the dress sighed and said, "I don't care what bureau you are, but please let those agents stop harassing me."

"Sorry, Adela, this is the responsibility of the FBI agents. Please understand."

"I know you are already very exhausted, and as the last witness to the incident, you only need to describe to us one more time what you saw. I guarantee that no one will come to disturb you again after this."

The girl called Adela sighed softly and said.

"At dusk four days ago, I set off from Manhattan and drove to Buffalo. I wanted to return to this small house left by my grandparents on the US-Canada border."

"Sorry, but I would like to ask..."

"I broke up with my boyfriend. Two weeks after he proposed to me, I discovered that he had been keeping a long-term relationship with another woman, and this woman was my superior. Obviously, I couldn't make it in New York anymore."

"I feel very sorry."

"No need." Adela sighed and said, "My grandmother often said that if you miss something, perhaps it's your good luck coming. I think it's time to come back and accompany my grandmother."

"Is she a Canadian?"

"That's right, she married into the United States, but that's all ancient history. Buffalo is a fairly deserted place. I wanted to come back to relax, but just arriving here, I felt it was a bit too remote. Maybe I'm more adapted to the bustle of New York."

"I came back to tidy up the house briefly, and then I fell asleep. The next morning, I drove across the border to Canada, preparing to go see Niagara Falls, and while on the road, I felt something was wrong."

May immediately leaned forward, listening carefully to what Adela said. Coulson also showed a focused attitude, which made Adela feel a bit nervous. Her arms closed, her hands rubbed constantly, and then she said.

"The fog was particularly heavy that day, and I don't know what happened. When I drove through the toll station in the morning, I couldn't even see the notice board clearly."

"Can you clearly feel the change in the air?" Coulson asked.

Adela nodded and said, "I felt the surroundings become humid, but I didn't feel difficulty breathing. I opened the car window, and the air outside was as humid and cold as every morning, with a little forest fragrance."

She turned her head nervously to look at Coulson, as if waiting for him to ask for details, but Coulson nodded and said, "Please continue, ma'am."

"The fog became thicker and thicker. I don't know when the cars that crossed the border with me before disappeared. It seemed like I was the only one left on the whole highway."

"Do you remember the time?"

"After 7 o'clock in the morning, maybe close to 8 o'clock." Adela pursed her lips and said, "I didn't pay attention to the time, but I remember the sunlight at that time was about 7 or 8 o'clock."

"Thank you, please continue."

"I drove all the way forward, but I felt something was wrong. When my grandmother was alive, sometimes our whole family would drive back to Canada to visit relatives. We often took this road. If I remember correctly, after driving forward for about one kilometer, it was no longer a straight line, but a right turn."

"But the car kept driving." Adela spread her hands and said very confusedly, "I feel like I drove at least 10 kilometers, but I didn't see any intersections or curves."

"And then? Are you still driving forward?"

"Of course not. I thought I took the wrong road, so I stopped in the lane next to me and got out of the car to see what was going on."

"To determine if I took the wrong road, I turned on the navigation device, but there was no signal, and the phone had no signal. I was completely out of touch with the outside world, and I couldn't wait for any other cars."

"I had no other choice but to continue driving forward, and then I don't know how long it passed. I feel like at least 70 or 80 kilometers. My car ran out of gas, and I had no choice but to stop."

"And then?" Coulson knew the key point was coming.

"I thought, maybe the signal outside the car would be better, so I got out of the car." Adela shrank her shoulders and said, "And then just as I got down, I found a figure standing at the end of the thick fog."

"Can you see his appearance clearly?"

Adela shook her head and said with some difficulty, "The fog was too heavy, visibility was less than 20 meters, and that shadow stood in the depths of the thick fog. I could only see a very blurry outline."

"But I am very sure that it was a human shadow, at least a humanoid creature. He stood there straight."

"Height?"

"I think maybe 1.9 meters, but not particularly tall, nor very strong. He looked like a human male, but I feel he is not a human."

"Why?" Coulson asked.

"Why what?"

"What features on him make you feel he is not a human?"

"It's hard for me to describe." Adela lowered her head, used her joined hands to push the hair in front of her forehead to the back, lifted her lip, and then said, "His figure was constantly shaking. That's not an action a human can make, as if he was really a mass of fog floating with the wind."

"I feel it was too... ethereal, not at all like a person standing on the ground, just like fog floating in the air."

"Did he do anything?"

"No." Adela shook her head and said, "I feel he was looking at me."

"Why? Why do you feel he was looking at you?"

"I don't know, but I just feel he should be staring at me, as if he wanted to say something to me, but... no, nothing happened."

"Then what did you do?"

"I feel very sad. I don't know why I encountered such a thing. I mean everything I experienced before and the accident at that time. I feel everything is going wrong, so I returned to the car and started crying."

Adela took a deep breath, then exhaled, leaned back on the sofa, and said, "I don't know how long it passed, I felt very sleepy, so I fell asleep."

"When I woke up, I found that the Canadian traffic police were knocking on my car window. They thought my car had broken down and came to ask if I needed help."

"Where were you at that time?"

"Border checkpoint." Adela frowned, rubbed her eyebrows painfully, and said, "The queue in front was very long, and I had been waiting. Maybe it was in this process that I fell asleep."

"So is this a dream you had?" May asked.

Adela's face immediately showed an expression of suffocation. Coulson hurriedly stepped forward and added, "We mean, do you think this is a dream you had?"

"Of course not." Adela said somewhat brokenly, "If I thought this was a dream I had, why would I call the police?"

"When I intended to start the car again, I found that the car had run out of gas, exactly the same as what I encountered in the fog. But this is impossible. I completed the supply in Buffalo, and the gas in the tank was full."

"Even if the gas really wasn't much, how could it run out just when I drove to the border checkpoint?"

Adela reached out and took a mobile phone from her handbag and said, "And if it were a dream, how could the record of my satellite navigation be there? This is a record that can be checked on the official website of the communication provider! You don't want to say that all the programmers of the communication company are crazy, right?!" ===== CHAPTER 2107 =====